Rory McIlroy got the last laugh at this heckler at the U.S. Open.
As McIlroy teed off alongside Maverick McNealy to start their day on Saturday afternoon from the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Long Island, the reigning Masters Champion heard one loud, boastful fan screaming, and McIlroy made sure he was heard without saying a word.
“Bunker! Get in the bunker!” the fan said at the tee spot with his phone in his hand, looking to capture a potentially viral moment.
McIlroy began walking toward the fairway when he looked at the fan and made a belly gesture with his hands, dissing the apparently heavyset heckler.
Golf is normally a game of respect, and at some tournaments, like the Masters, event organizers do not allow phones, which some have speculated would solve issues like these at other tournaments.
Another fan even took to Reddit, claiming this same fan was screaming throughout the weekend.
One fan heard someone yelling, “get in the water,” while eventual winner Wyndham Clark was putting with speculation that it was this same fan looking for 15 minutes of fame.
McIlroy ended the tournament at 3-over, tied for 32nd, while Clark held on at 4-under for a wire-to-wire win.
At one point on Sunday, a Sky Sports microphone picked up a rabid McIlroy reaction to a poor shot on the third hole when he screamed: “Just go home, Rory f–king hell.”
After Clark’s win on Sunday, he told reporters that he was unhappy with the event ending too late in the day and reducing the number of fans at key moments, calling them “a little flat.”
“Yeah, it was kind of unfortunate that we’re finishing in the dark and people weren’t really out there because there were some obviously key, big moments, and it did kind of get a little flat,” Clark said as he entered Sunday with a six-shot lead. “Hopefully tomorrow there’s a bunch of fans and stuff, but for me, it’s still really important, and I still felt the moment. It’s just maybe unfortunate that there weren’t all the people there.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
